


What do you think my job is?

by writingonpostcards



Series: Tumblr Ficlets - Check, Please! [21]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Assumptions, Crack, M/M, Neighbors, mistaken for a stripper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 07:52:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14304168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingonpostcards/pseuds/writingonpostcards
Summary: Bitty has come to the conclusion that his neighbour Jack is a stripper and asks him to strip at his friend's bachelorette party.(spoiler alert: Jack's not a stripper)





	What do you think my job is?

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to tumblr, hence the formatting of the start. Find more of my fics on [ tumblr](http://17piesinseptember.tumblr.com)

Neighbours au ft. police officer Jack and citizen Bitty where they’ve been neighbours for a while but they’ve never really met officially and Bitty has come to the conclusion that Jack’s a stripper because he’s seen him in uniform a bunch of times and they’re always really form-fitting and he’s often leaving his apartment in the evening as Bitty comes home from work. And he’s incredibly attractive.

Jack meanwhile likes night shifts and is too nice and offers to cover for his co-workers when they ask (he’s so bad at saying no) and also he has very particular detergent preferences and his home delivery grocery order gets it wrong half the time so he ends up wearing the old uniform from when he first joined the force.

And then at some point in time Bitty is organising a bachelorette party for Lardo and has her express permission to go “all out with the typical shit” so his brain goes _strippers and alcohol_ but Bitty leaves it a little last minute and also realises he isn’t sure how to go about ordering a reputable stripper to come ‘crash’ the party he’s planning on hosting in his apartment.

Then he passes Jack in the hallway one morning (Jack coming in from a shift and Bitty leaving for work) and he’s like “this is my answer” because by this stage Bitty and Jack often have little chats in the corridor, and when they happen to be in the apartment block’s gym together, and the couple of times they’ve bumped into each other in the library. Jack seems lovely and Bitty would trust him. So.

“Hey, Jack.” Bitty stops him with a wave in the corridor.

“Hi Bits,” Jack replies. Bitty hasn’t quite gotten him to use ‘Bitty’. Yet.

“I was wondering, do you do bachelorette parties?” Bitty asks Jack.

Jack’s forehead gets all furrowed. “What do you mean?” Jack is thrown by the non-sequitur.

“Like, do you go to bachelorette parties?” Bitty asks, meaning, _can I book you to strip at my friend’s bachelorette party._

Meanwhile, Jack is thinking ‘maybe Bitty wants to know if I’ve ever been called in for a noise complaint’ which is very strange but he likes Bitty (maybe even _likes_ Bitty) so he nods and answers, “Yeah, a couple of times,” because it’s the truth.

“Amazing!” Bitty smiles so brightly at him Jack forgets how strange the question was in the first place. 

Bitty gets out his phone and says while typing into it, “I probably should’ve asked sooner. I don’t know how far in advance someone has to book these things. Are you free the last Saturday of this month? It’ll just be at my place, so super convenient for you.”

Jack blinks to buy himself time. It sounds like Bitty is... pre-registering a noise complaint? Against himself? That can’t be right.

“Jack?” Bitty prompts, looking with his gorgeous, warm eyes at Jack. “Are you free?”

“Yes,” Jack replies with the truth again, though he feels like he’s lost track of their conversation a few sentences back.

“Fantastic.” Bitty is so relieved. He probably should have gotten onto this sooner. “I’ll book you in. Do you have a website or something? What’s your pay rate?” 

“Wait.”

Bitty looks up from his phone. Jack looks lost.

“What do you mean?” Jack asks.

“What do you mean, ‘what do I mean’?” Bitty asks in return.

“I mean, why would you be paying me?” Jack asks. His eyebrows draw down.

Bitty blinks. “You--Because it’s your job?” he replies slowly. Surely Jack isn’t offering to do it for _free_. Bitty didn’t think they were that close. Not that he hasn’t thought about getting closer (in a few ways) to Jack, but that’s neither here nor there.

“Hold on.” Jack puts a hand up between them. He shuts his eyes for a bit and Bitty can almost feel how hard he’s thinking. His opens them and asks, “What do you think my job is?”

Bitty looks around to make sure they’re still the only ones in the corridor. They are. He leans close to Jack anyway because, yeah, he wants to. “You’re a stripper,” he says quietly.

Jack’s eyebrows jump up. “I’m a what?”

Bitty shrugs, trying to act cool and not like he’s thought about it a lot. “A stripper,” he repeats.

Jack shakes his head. "No. I’m a cop.” He gestures down at his uniform.

Bitty rolls his eyes but manages to say (sincerely, he hopes), “It’s okay. I know that’s just a costume.”

“But it’s not,” Jack says, shaking his head again.

“Then-” Bitty looks Jack over. “Why is it so _tight_?” he can’t help but ask. Oops. Probably shouldn’t have.

It’s Jack’s turn to shrug. “I ran out of clean ones in my usual size.”

“Oh,” Bitty says, meaning _that it makes a lot more sense than the conclusion I jumped to_. “Oh. Okay. So... Oh. Um.” Bitty is flustered. Jack isn’t a stripper. He’s an actual cop and Bitty’s basically been soliciting him in the place where he lives, letting it slip he thinks Jack’s attractive enough that he could be a stripper. Of all the ways Bitty thought about (maybe) telling Jack he was interested in him this is not it.

“You really thought I was a stripper?” Jack asks.

“I’m so sorry,” Bitty says emphatically. “You just...The uniforms,” he cries out, gesturing, “and the face, and working nights. I guess I added two and two and got ten.”

“It’s alright,” Jack tells him kindly.

Bitty sighs gratefully and laughs at himself because that’s better than several other reactions he could be having right now up to an including spontaneous combustion. “I did wonder why it was only ever the cop uniform,” he tacks on jokingly (though it’s a topic he’s put a fair amount of serious thought into).

“You did?” Bitty can tell Jack is surprised.

“Yes. Wait, no! Not like--I mean, _yes_. But I didn’t wonder like I was _picturing_ it. I meant I wondered like-” Bitty bites his tongue. 

He feels his confidence flickering and then Jack says, “I’m sorry.” 

Bitty cocks his head at Jack. “Why are _you_ sorry? _I’m_ sorry.”

“Because I can’t do your friend’s bachelorette party,” Jack explains. “Or. I could. I mean-Not-”

Bitty didn’t think Jack blushed. He’s getting proved wrong. Very thoroughly.

“I could be there, but not as-”

“Jack, you don’t have to.”

“-not as a stripper. As me. But only-” 

“I invited you because I thought--But you’re not, so.”

“-only if you want me, there.”

“It’d be a terrible first date, I don’t think-”

“But I don’t know your friend, and if it makes you uncomfortable-”

Bitty realises what he’s just said at about the same time Jack does. Bitty slaps his hand over his mouth. Jack goes still.

They’re still alone in the corridor but Bitty wishes very hard for someone to interrupt them. He wishes it for somewhere between three and twenty seconds.

“Okay!” He says, too loud and faux-cheerily once his brain gives him the brilliant idea to get away from the situation as quickly as possible. “I should really go to work. Let’s forget about me asking--You know, let’s just forget the whole everything actually. Bye Jack.”

Bitty rushes through the words as he walks steadily backwards towards the lifts, putting several feet between them.

“Wait. Bits.”

Bitty ignores Jack and turns his back on him. _Please be a lift already on this floor_ , he pleads to himself. _Please, please, please._

“Bitty.”

He can’t help it. He turns around.

“Did you mean it?” Jack asks him.

“Which part?”

Jack walks over to Bitty. This would be a great time to press the button for the lift or dive into the stairwell. Bitty does neither of those things.

“About your friend’s bachelorette party being a terrible first date.”

“Oh, well, yes. I think anyone would agree with that. A bachelorette party as a date? Terrible idea.” Bitty didn’t realise he was still nervous but the word-vomit betrays him. The air-conditioning in the corridor must be out. He feels sweaty.

The words keep coming. Bitty looks over Jack’s shoulder and around at the walls, hoping for something that’ll stop his mouth motoring on. “Nice dinner, maybe a lunch--a movie if pressed--all much better. A walk in the park! Or I could even--”

“I like dinner, myself.”

“Hmm,” Bitty looks to Jack. It looks like he’s trying not to laugh at Bitty. He’s smiling very widely at least, like he’s in on some joke.

“Dinner,” Jack repeats. “I think that’s a good first date.”

“Right.” Bitty nods and files that information away. 

“Bits?”

Bitty misses the ‘Bitty’ already. “Yes, Jack?”

“I’m trying to see if you’d like to go on a dinner-date with me.”

“Oh.” There it is again. His favourite sound. “Even though I thought you were a stripper?” 

He wants to punch his own self in the face. Jack laughs before he can action the impulse.

“Yes. Even though you thought that.”

“Because you really are very attractive,” Bitty tries to explain himself.

“Thank you,” Jack says, smiling at Bitty.

“And the uniforms really were very tight.”

“I know.” Jack’s smile gets bigger.

“And you kept going out a--”

Jack steps into Bitty’s space and Bitty’s breath goes _woosh_ right out of him. Jack doesn’t say anything, just quirks his eyebrows up.

“Why are looking at me like that?” Bitty asks.

“You haven’t answered my question yet.”

“Oh. Yes. Yes. Jack, I’d love to.”

Jack surprises Bitty by dropping a kiss to his cheek. Somehow, Bitty has never picked that Jack would be the smooth one in a relationship.

“You should probably leave for work now, eh.” Bitty can tell Jack’s teasing, but he’s also right. “They’re probably missing you at the male escort agency.”

Bitty lands a punch to Jack’s gut for that.


End file.
